In my native country, Cuba, they have an old saying "Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres." Translated literally it means "Tell me who you run around with, and I will tell you who you are. Colloquially, I would translate it as "Dumb people run with dumb people."

Barack Obama is beginning to look better and better, even if he continues the U.S. failed embargo against Cuba.

There is only one "moderate" among the eight GOP candidates for POTUS, Huntsman, and because the party of Lincoln has been taken over by religious and political fanatics -- who hate everyone and every country -- except the genocidal Zionists, he does not have a chance to win the GOP nomination.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - In a small sign that U.S. relations with Cuba may be improving, Ambassador Jorge Bolaños Suarez, head of the Cuban Interest Section in the United States, traveled to Ohio last week. It was first time in 10 years that the United States has permitted Cuba's highest ranking diplomat to travel away from the Washington D.C. area, where the Interest Section is based. Bolaños spoke on Thursday to a small audience at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center, in a talk that revisited key points of common history shared by the U.S. and Cuba, described some of Cuba's outstanding achievements, and contemplated the long-term future of relations between Cuba and the United States.

Bolaños reminded the audience of the close relationship that the U.S. and Cuba have shared over two centuries, beginning in the American Revolutionary War when a Cuban military hero fought in George Washington's army and ultimately died in Washington's home. U.S. participation in Cuba's wars of independence from Spain ultimately led to a diminution of Cuba's national sovereignty, until the victory of the revolution in January 1959 restored the nation's self-determination.

Cuba is an internationally respected nation with outstanding achievements to its credit, Bolaños said. He cited its 35,000 professionals - doctors and teachers - who are at work abroad in poorer countries where help is desperately needed. Cuba has achieved accolades for its high ranking among Latin American countries in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The international community overwhelmingly supports Cuba, as evidenced in consistent calls in the United Nations for the end of the US embargo against Cuba. Bolaños recalled that Cuba was the first foreign destination for Nelson Mandela when he was finally elected president of a free South Africa. Ambassador Bolaños was at the UN when Mandela spoke there and recognized Cuba as the leader in the international fight against apartheid.

Bolaños' discussion of U.S./Cuba relations centered on the embargo, which has both economic and moral costs to both Cuba and the United States. Bolaños reminded his audience that the original purpose behind the U.S. embargo against Cuba was to cause suffering amongst ordinary Cubans. U.S. officials hoped and expected that when Cubans were hungry and desperate, they would rebel against their government. That of course never happened, and more than 50 years later, the policy is still preventing Americans from buying Cuban products and from visiting Cuba for themselves.

Cuba is linked closely by geography, culture and history to the United States, Bolaños noted. Cuba has never been at war with the U.S. and poses no threat to U.S. security, he said, adding that Cubans hope the two countries can live in peace based on mutual respect for each other's sovereignty and self-determination.

Bolaños credited Ohio State University President Gordon Gee for organizing his visit to Ohio. He went on to speak at Youngstown State University on Friday before returning to Washington.

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JG: Any positive step should be commended and applauded. But the Cuba embargo is a failed U.S. policy. GET RID OF IT MR PRESIDENT! Give us a new Profile in Courage: send a written message to the U.S. Congress that says: "It came a time when the United States recognized that The People's Republic of China was the only true government of mainland China. The reality of Cuba is that the Cuban Revolutionary Government is the only true legitimate government of the island, and it has the overwhelming support of the population. The embargo must be LIFTED, and let the remnants of the Cold War be repealed!"

The current reforms being undertaken by the Cuban government to increase the non-state sector and introduce market solutions do not threaten the socialist nature of the revolution according to research published this month in the International Journal of Cuban Studies.

Professor Michael O’Sullivan of Brock University in Ontario, Canada, interviewed Cuban young people about their attitudes to the revolution, socialism and their future following the reforms announced by Cuban President Raúl Castro in 2010 and implemented by the Cuban Communist Party in April this year.

His findings conclude that the reforms are part of a continuing process of renewal of the revolution that has gone through four distinct phases since 1959 and is now entering its fifth:“Each of these phases constitute a continuation of the historical process and does not constitute a rupture with that process,” says O’Sullivan. “The most obvious of the ongoing characteristics is the socialist character of the country which is not threatened by creating a large non-state sector.”

‘Educated Cuban youth and the 2010 economic reforms: reinventing the imagined revolution’ is published in Volume 3 Number 4 of the IJCS. To subscribe visit the journal website or join the International Institute for the Study of Cuba.

Since Saturday night, millions of Americans have watched blast after blast of pepper spray directed at seated, passively resisting protesters at the University of California, Davis. The chemical was fired into their faces and on their bodies at point-blank range.

Two campus police officers are captured on video spraying the poisonous chemical.

The attack on the protesters was completely unjustified even according to the questionable standards of law enforcement, which allow the chemical's use in cases of a clear threat to the life and safety of police carrying out legitimate duties.

Criminologists across the country have joined in expressions of outrage, noting that police pepper spray can be even more dangerous than a Taser.

A victim of pepper spray first feels sharp burning and pain and then coughs as breathing becomes more difficult. Soon the victim's lungs begin to bleed, as was the case with several of the victims at the University of California last weekend.

This is not an isolated incident.

Police in New York used pepper spray on the first day of the Occupy Wall Street protests. When New York's billionaire mayor eventually evicted protesters from Zuccotti Park, it was supposedly out of concern for public safety.

In Portland, Ore., protesters were hit with pepper spray last week. Photographers captured the horrific image of a young woman having the spray pumped directly into her mouth, nose and eyes.

The same dangerous chemicals were also sprayed on Occupy protesters in Seattle.

We believe that it is time for the federal government to move in and stop what has become a pattern of attacks on the fundamental rights not only of Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country, but on the rights of all Americans to engage in peaceful protest.

This has historical precedent. When workers occupied an auto plant in Flint, Mich., in the 1930s, U.S. troops were sent in to protect the occupiers from the police who were attacking them.

During the upsurge of the civil rights movement in the 1960's, our government again sent troops in to protect the public against police who used tear gas, water canons and attack dogs against civil rights demonstrators in the South.

As more and more members of the 99 percent majority exercise their rights to public assembly and free speech, we should, in a democracy, expect nothing less.

We are clearly in an era now where protests are becoming a daily, business-as-usual event. This demands a reassessment of how police forces, nationally, need to change the way they behave when "protecting" the "public." Even the definition of the "public" itself has changed as, more and more, the public and the protesters become one and the same.

One of the big issues for Occupy Davis students is the ceaseless round of tuition hikes resulting from the state's cuts to education. Previous generations of working-class youth attended that institution for free. Today, the tuition stands at almost $14,000 a year and it is climbing.

On Monday, New York City students at CUNY protesting tuition increases were also victims of police brutality at the Baruch campus.

Students all across America, asking for nothing more than what was granted to generations who came before them, should not have to face the threat of police attacks on their peaceful protests.

There are demands to fire the police chief, the officers involved and the University's Chancellor at Davis. While we support all of those demands, they are only first steps.

It's time for our elected leaders to speak out and take action against police brutality. The Justice Department today needs to step in with strict guidelines that protect all the people. And it should investigate the police departments involved for violating protester's civil rights.

Photo: One of the many pepper spray memes that popped up and went viral, this one depicting spraying at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Monday, November 28, 2011

The world has changed. It is completely different from the world in the late 1950's. Constant transformations and new ideas are sweeping the planet. Technological advances are taking place practically everyday. And yet, there are blind people hat refuse to see.

Barack Obama is a case in point. His avowed "change you can believe in" was total fakery, specially on the Cuba issue. He continues to promote the Cuba embargo of Dumb Dubya and his eight predecessors.

The real problem, you see, is that Barack Obama does not really wants "reforms" in Cuba. What he wants is the total surrender of Cuba's sovereignty. To him reform and/or transition is total capitulation and the return of dog-eat-dog U.S. capitalism to the island.

Here is what one Cuba analyst, Anya Landau French, said today about the Obama administration: "when Raul Castro’s government released more than 50 political prisoners last year imprisoned in 2003 for their alleged cooperation with the United States (in fact, it released more than 100, all of its political prisoners according to Amnesty International, except those convicted of violent crimes), the Obama administration hardly acknowledged its significance."

[The U.S.responses] "were sold as a more effective way to get around the Cuban government, reinforcing Cuban officials’ perception that all the US government is interested in in Cuba is regime change – hardly an incentive to serious negotiation."

Barack Obama is very busy. Collecting money in Miami for his re-election campaign, promising the extremists in that cesspool of a city that he is "going to liberate Cuba." The gusanos, gullible suckers that they are, send him money. All I am want to do is to get a refund of the money that I sent Obama in 2008.

Based on what he promised in 2008, can anyone believe Barack Obama today?

A "new beginning" with Cuba is not going to happen under Barack Obama.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

All the major sources of the news media in the United States are controlled by die-hard capitalism fanatics. Examples are: The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, among others. To them capitalism is a religion, with strict dogmas that most be adhered to.

When they talk about advanced civilized societies that are not non-capitalist they usually dust up disparaging or belittling comments. A case in point is The Washington Post. The Cuban postal service is "rickety." I could probably give you hundreds of examples. When they talk about the Cuban government it is always referred as "the communist government" of the island. Have you ever seen a news article at the Washington Post where they say "the capitalist government" of United States? It is as if they were ashamed their dog-eat-dog society and economic and political system.

You will never see The Washington Post say the following: "Cuba has the best health care and educational system of any developing-world country and its infant mortality rate for the whole Republic is below that of Washington. D.C."

Worse than a religious fanatic -- remember when they burned heretics at the stake? -- is a political fanatic: Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930's and Bush and Obama in the first decade of the XXI century.

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat from Florida, is a typical corrupt Democratic Party politician. He has always been a "buddy" of the Batistianos in Miami, and is a good friend of Robert Menendez, another corrupt Democrat, this one from New Jersey, a state where politicians are usually allies of the American Mafia.

Nelson is upset because foreign companies are going to explore for oil in Cuban territorial waters in the Gulf Of Mexico. So he has introduced a silly bill in the U.S. Senate which does not amount to a hill of beans, and is the trademark of failed politicos, who usually introduce bills for political posturing and to collect graft money under the table.

He is also strongly in favor of continuing the failed embargo against Cuba. He has no shame, doesn't he?

So I am adding him to my little list of incumbent politicians who will not get my vote in November 2012.

Does anyone want to make an educated guess as to the exact date when the President of the United States or his Treasury Department Secretary goes on national TV and announces: "My fellow citizens: the United States federal government has filed for BANKRUPTCY!"

In the meantime, capitalist millionaires and billionaires keep buying more yachts and palaces, while millions of working-class citizens are losing their homes and have to apply for food-stamps.

The international development community, especially financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank, and the United States should reach out to communist Cuba as it pursues economic reforms and bring it "in from the cold," a new think tank report says.

The report published by the Brookings Institution in Washington says incipient economic reforms set in motion by Cuban President Raul Castro should be encouraged by the world's economic policy makers because history suggests that such reforms can foster political pluralism.

"In approaching Cuban economic reform, the United States should join with the international development community in nudging forward that irresistible flow of history," said the report, which will be released tomorrow.

The report's author, Richard Feinberg, is a non-resident senior fellow with the Latin America Initiative at the Brookings Institution. He served as special assistant to President Bill Clinton for National Security Affairs and senior director of the National Security Council's (NSC) Office of Inter-American Affairs.

The Brookings publication is one of several reports by US think tanks and institutions that have appeared in recent weeks urging President Barack Obama's administration to pay close attention to the reforms currently under way in Cuba, which remains the target of a long-running US economic embargo.

Liberalisation

President Castro's reforms, endorsed by Cuba's ruling Communist Party in an April Congress, include ground-breaking measures such as allowing Cubans to buy and sells cars and homes. They also widen self-employment and private business opportunities for tens of thousands of Cubans in a bid to soak up worker layoffs in the stagnant centralised state economy.

Feinberg said Cuba's moves to promote more market-oriented systems and its increasing openness to the international economy provided a "golden opportunity" for engagement, despite the persistence of conservative elements in the leadership resistant to significant political and economic change.

"My argument precisely is not to deny that there are forces of inertia there; clearly there are and they remain strong. But it is the role of the international community in circumstances such as this to lend their weight to the positive forces of change," Feinberg told Reuters.

He cited the examples of Nicaragua and Vietnam, which despite their socialist governments still maintained successful relationships with international financial institutions (IFIs) like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

"IFI staff economists and sector specialists are chomping at the bit to engage in Cuba - they should be allowed and encouraged to do so," the report said.

Revolutionary Cuba withdrew from the World Bank in 1960 and from the IMF in 1964, and since then has kept up a thunderous propaganda drumbeat against financial institutions which its leaders dismissively refer to as "tools of imperialism".

The report blamed what it called "the unyielding Cuban-American lobby" in the United States for bullying the US government into blocking any outreach towards Cuba from the Washington-based IMF and World Bank.

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JG: The Brookings Institution website has the complete report on PDF format. Click on the link in the second paragraph.

3) If Cubans make it to U.S. soil, they become eligible for legal status.

Why does Cain need these basic facts?

On a visit to Miami this week he munched on a Cuban croqueta and asked with a mouthful of food, "How do you say delicious in Cuban?"

Cain also struggled to answer basic questions about U.S.-Cuba foreign policy accusing one reporter of asking a "gotcha question," according to CNN.

Cain continues to show gross ignorance about the world and human rights. Let's not forget his suggestion that we build an "electrified" fence at the U.S.-Mexico border that could zap to death undocumented immigrants.

Turns out he later said he was just joking. Right!

That's probably what he'll say about speaking Cuban.

I wonder what he thinks they speak in Brazil - Brazilian or Spanish?

I bet if you asked him in which countries they speak Portuguese, he'd say that's a "gotcha question."

It's obvious from his recent Libya gaffe, where he had a giant brain fart before answering the question, that he doesn't understand world events.

If he became president, imagine a trip to the Middle East. He would probably think he'd have to learn Egyptian, Israelian and Tarabian.

Hey I'm just making up words like Cain himself. He joked about not knowing who is the president of "Ubeki-beki-beki-stan-stan."

All of this makes me wonder how he thinks he could be qualified to be president of the United States.

This is without even factoring in the very serious accusations of sexual harassment.

And anybody who calls House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi "Princess Nancy" should be sent to sensitivity training.

Apologies not accepted.

Maybe Cain was brought up at a time when only "American" was taught in school. I doubt he paid much attention in history class. Maybe he studied pig Latin instead.

Cain may think all of this is funny.

I find it frightening, no matter what language you speak.

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Cain Stumbles Over Cuba Policy

Wall Street Washington Wire

Herman Cain raised more questions about his grasp of foreign policy during a campaign stop in Florida Wednesday.

Between events with groups of Cuban Americans, Mr. Cain was asked about the U.S. “wet-foot, dry-foot policy,” which allows Cubans who make it to U.S. soil to stay, while those that get caught in transit (in the water) are sent back. Cuban immigration policy is a key topic for White House hopefuls stumping in South Florida.

From the Miami Herald:

His campaign kept reporters at bay, and when asked about the Cuban Adjustment Act and the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy, Cain seemed stumped…

“Wet-foot, dry-foot policy?” Cain asked. His press handlers interrupted as Cain diverted his course and ducked back into the building. Later, when he emerged, he was asked again by another reporter. Cain didn’t answer.

“Gotta run, gentlemen,” he said.

Mr. Cain also deflected a question on what he made of President Barack Obama easing travel restrictions to Cuba. That is a “gotcha question,” Mr. Cain said.

Later Wednesday, Mr. Cain said he didn’t think it was right to send back Cubans who had almost made it to U.S. shores.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

When it comes to the Cuba issue, they are one of the most right-wing branches of the Democratic Party. Ariana Huffington and her gang are certified Cuba haters.

Their latest anti-Cuba garbage, by Maricio Claver-Carone, is the usual talking points of the Miami ultra-conservative Cuba haters, which are the remnants of General Fulgencio Batista, who live in South Florida. They stole millions of dollars from Cuba's Treasury Depasrtment on January First, 1959, and then fled to Miami, Florida, with their buddies in the American Mafia. They still dream of returning "democracy" to Cuba, but they are all slowly dying in Calle Ocho.

His latest hate campaign is as follow:

"Reasonable minds should be able to agree that it's not in the United States' national interest to assist anti-American dictators in searching for oil to support their repressive, failing regimes. It won't drop the price of gas in the United States or do anything to enhance our "energy independence."

Yet American assistance to make oil-drilling in the Florida Straits profitable is exactly what Cuba's dictators Fidel and Raul Castro hope to gain as they use the threat of oil-drilling to maneuver the Obama Administration into once again unilaterally lifting U.S. sanctions on Cuba."

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Book Description: The Brooklyn Dodgers held spring training in Havana in 1947 so Jackie Robinson could practice safely. Yet that was hardly the beginning: the Bums played in Cuba over 60 seasons, from 1900 to 1959. Ballplayers drank hard with Hemingway. Some found themselves in Cuban jails. Pitcher Van Lingle Mungo, barricaded in the Hotel Nacional with two women, fended off an angry husband (and his machete). Leo Durocher got into a brawl with an umpire, after Lippy's translator correctly cursed him in Spanish. Vin Scully watched machine gun-toting barbudos enter the room. An outfielder leaped into the stands, with a loaded gun, to chase a fan. Several players encountered Fidel Castro, who once walked onto the field in his fatigues, patted his pistol, and said to Lefty Locklin, "Tonight, we win."

Author Bio: Jim Vitti has written several baseball books and received the Sporting News/Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Award in 2004. He longs for the day when Havana can rejoin the International League.

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JG: This book is superb! I got my copy on the mail on Saturday. It has a big treasure of outstanding photos of great MLB players while they were "spring training" in Havana. If you like Cuba and baseball, this book belongs in your library.

A massive $750m (£473m) Chinese-built oil rig, the Scarabeo 9, is due to arrive in Cuba before the end of the year, to begin drilling a series of exploratory wells.

A whole range of international oil companies from Spain, Norway, Russia, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Canada, Angola, Venezuela, and China - but not the US - are lining up to hire the rig and search for what are believed to be substantial oil deposits.

"We will drill several wells next year and I'm sure we will have discoveries. It is not a matter of if we have oil, it is a matter of when we are going to start producing," Rafael Tenreiro, head of exploration for the Cuban state-owned oil company Cupet, confidently predicts.

The Spanish company Repsol will be the first to drill, with an exploratory well in extremely deep water just 50 miles (80km) off the coast of Florida.

Be prepared

It has sent alarm bells ringing in the United States because if there were an accident, the ocean currents would push any oil spill onto Florida's beaches and the Everglades.

Yet under the US trade embargo, neither American firms nor the Coast Guard could come to Cuba's assistance or provide much needed equipment such as booms, pumps, skimmers and oil dispersant systems.

The Cubans would need to turn to the Norwegians, British or Brazilians for help.

"In the event of a disaster we are talking a response time in terms of equipment of four to six weeks as opposed to 36 or 48 hours. This is a serious impediment," warned Lee Hunt, president of the Texas-based International Association of Drilling Contractors.

Mr Hunt was part of a team of oil industry and environmental experts who were given permission by the Obama administration to visit Cuba to discuss safety issues with the authorities in Havana.

Leading the group was William Reilly, a former head of the US Environmental Protection Agency and co-author of the government report into last year's BP oil disaster.

He was impressed with Cuba's awareness of the risks and knowledge of the latest international safety measures.

The explosion and blow-out aboard BP's Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana killed 11 people and spilled 5m barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It was one of the worst environmental disasters ever to hit the Gulf Coast.

It took 85 days to cap the well head, which was 5,500 feet beneath the surface. The Scarabeo 9 will be drilling in even deeper water.

After his talks with Cuban officials, William Reilly said he found them serious about safety and aware of international best practice but lacking in experience.

He wants to see the US co-operate with Cuba on safety issues and ease the embargo to allow US companies to assist in case of an emergency.

"It is profoundly in the interests of the United States to prepare the Cubans as best we can to ensure that we are protected in the case of a spill. We need to make it 'Key West safe'."

But Florida's powerful Cuban-American lobby has other ideas and with the 2012 presidential election looming, Barack Obama is in a difficult position.

Oil windfall?

The anti-Castro groups want the administration to take action to halt the drilling altogether and not just for safety reasons.

A major oil find would make this communist-run Caribbean island financially independent for the first time since the revolution in 1959.

For more than half a century Cuba has been dependent on the largesse of its ideological allies. First it was subsidized by the Soviet Union, then more recently Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, China.

Cuba has long produced some oil from a series of small onshore and coastal deposits.

Cuba currently produces about 53,000 barrels of oil a day but still needs to import about 100,000 barrels, mainly from Venezuela.

Its deep territorial waters, though, lie on the same geological strata as oil rich Mexico and the US Gulf.

Estimates on just how much offshore oil Cuba is sitting on vary. A US Geological Survey estimate suggests 4.6bn barrels, the Cubans say 20bn.

Even the most conservative estimate would make Cuba a net oil exporter. A large find would provide untold riches.

It is one of the US-based anti-Castro lobby's worst nightmares.

"The decaying Cuban regime is desperately reaching out for an economic lifeline, and it appears to have found a willing partner in Repsol to come to its rescue," Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Cuban-born Republican and Chairwoman of the influential House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement recently.

[JG: Of course the BBC very conveniently forgets to mention that La Loba Feroz family participated in the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. She, and her imperialist masters, would like to be able to exploit Cubans again.]

The Florida Congresswoman and a group of 33 other legislators, both Republican and Democrat, wrote to Repsol warning the company that the drilling could subject the company to "criminal and civil liability in US courts".

Repsol responded saying that its exploratory wells complied with all current US legislation covering the embargo as well as all safety regulations.

It has also agreed to allow US officials to conduct a safety inspection of the Chinese rig before it enters Cuban waters.

Under the embargo it is limited to just 10% American technology.

The rig was fitted in Singapore and the one piece of US equipment which was installed was the blow-out preventer.

[JG: If the imperialists are so smart, how come that the American-made blow-out preventer at BP's platform did not work? The reason is that capitalists are only interested in making huge sums of money at all costs. They cut corners and they cut safety procedures. Result: the death of 11 innocent people a the Deepwater Horizon BP oil rig. But since the U.S. and the British are partners in crime, they look the other way. THEY ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH!]

It was the failure of BP's blow-out preventer which was at the heart of that disaster.

According to Lee Hunt, the Scarabeo 9 is a state of the art deep-water rig and there are six similar platforms built at the same Chinese shipyard currently operating in US waters.

For the moment environmental concerns appear to be taking precedence over politics.

The government will take up Repsol's offer to inspect Scarabeo 9 and a limited number of licences have been issued to US clean-up operators to enter Cuban waters and assist in the event of a spill.

But the arguments are far from over as environmentalists are pushing for greater co-operation while Cuban-American groups are looking at ways to place legal and legislative hurdles in the way.

Using satellite connections to the Internet and equipment that was either stolen or brought to the island illegally, they set up a service to receive international telephone calls that bypassed the state telephone monopoly ETECSA.

"This activity is financed by the United States, which is where the necessary means and tools come from, evading the established controls," the newspaper charged.

Cuba has restricted access to the Internet, giving priority to universities, research centers, state entities and professionals like doctors and journalists.

Because of the US embargo, Cuba cannot connect to the underwater fiber optic cables that pass near the island, leaving satellite connections with high rates and narrow bandwidths as the main option available to Cuban Internet users.

To overcome those limitations, a Cuban-Venezuelan company laid an underwater cable between the two countries in February. It was supposed to have been activated in July, but it has been delayed for reasons the government has yet to explain.

Cuban authorities have previously accused the United States of illegally introducing technology in the island to enable the creation of wireless networks outside state control.

One such case was that of US government contractor Alan Gross, who was arrested in December 2009 and sentenced to 15 years prison for bringing IT equipment into the country and delivering it to various people.

"Cuba has every right to safeguard its radio-electronic sovereignty. Those who try to evade it will bear the weight of the corresponding administrative rules and criminal law," Granma said.

After years of anti-immigrant zealots dominating state legislatures and passing draconian immigration laws, people are fighting back – and winning!

This week, Arizonans voted the godfather of anti-immigrant politics out of office: State Senate President Russell Pearce.

Russell Pearce was the co-author of Arizona’s extremist anti-immigrant law, SB 1070. He rammed that radical bill into Arizona law, and extremist politicians in other states like Alabama copied it.

He was the fiercest advocate for radical anti-immigrant politics. Pearce tried to strip funding from schools that did not report undocumented students to authorities. He even called for the U.S. to reinstate “Operation Wetback,” an old and blatantly racist program that would deport more than one million immigrants a year. Russell Pearce staked his campaign and his Senate tenure on the notion that immigrants are what’s wrong with America and that if we demonize and deport them, we’ll be better off. He lost.

Read the full story about the recall and help us spread the word about this milestone by sharing it on Facebook and Twitter.

The voters of Russell Pearce’s Senate district (one of the most conservative districts in the state) sent the message loud and clear: attacking immigrants and terrorizing their communities is not only bad policy, but also bad politics.

We need to make sure that message resonates throughout the country -- particularly in Alabama, where a recently passed bill, HB 56, allows law enforcement to question anyone suspected to be in the country without papers, and detain them in jail without bond. No other state in America has a law this strict -- not even Arizona.

That’s why we’re trying to grow our movement to fight back against these policies.

On Sunday morning, November 13th, Portland police seized Lownsdale and Chapman squares from Occupy Portland protesters, who have camped at the site for the past six weeks. Officers swept into the public parks after a Saturday night of brinksmanship with protesting crowds that swelled into the thousands. Sunday evening, crowds moved to Pioneer Courthouse Square, but police have said they will not allow protesters to occupy any more public parks.

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JG: Portland "The City of Roses" is a great place. I lived there most of my life. Oregon's mountains, national forests and Pacific coast beaches are some of the most beautiful in the world. The people are friendly, peaceful and progressive. What more can you ask? Deceased Oregon U.S. Senator Wayne Morse was one of the strongest opponents against the imperialist war in South Vietnam.

But its Police Department is violent and brutal. They look like and act like black-dressed-thugs from Darth Vader's Dark Force.

JG: One year after Willie Mays was proudly wearing the uniform of Almendares, I switched my allegiance from being a Leones de La Habana fan and proceeded to join the legions of fans of the Alacranes del Almendares. It was a very sad year, that 1952. The U.S. favorite "democrat," General Fulgencio Batista had staged a coup on March 10, which would destroy the last vestiges of civility and democracy in the Caribbean Island. On January 1st, 1959, rebel forces led by Fidel and Raul Castro, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and others, would liberate the island from the U.S. supported puppet. CUBA WAS FINALLY FREE!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

HAVANA — The president of Cuba’s parliament said Friday no one should expect the island to unilaterally free an imprisoned American aid contractor and threw cold water on hopes he could be swapped for five Cuban agents held for more than a decade in the U.S.

Ricardo Alarcon’s comments, similar to ones he has expressed in the past, maintained Havana’s firm line in a case that has been a thorn in already prickly relations between the Cold War rivals. He spoke in response to comments by a U.S. rabbi who recently visited prisoner Alan Gross at a Cuban military hospital and said the Maryland man hoped for such an exchange.

“They are different situations,” Alarcon told journalists at a convention on fighting corruption.

“I read the statement from Rabbi (David) Shneyer ... I think it is a very measured, respectful statement expressing a legitimate humanitarian concern that I understand.” But, he said, “I don’t think people should expect unilateral gestures.”

Gross, 62, has been behind bars for nearly two years since his arrest in early December 2009, accused of illegally bringing communications equipment into Cuba while on a USAID-funded democracy-building program. Cuba’s Communist government considers such programs tantamount to efforts at regime change.

In March, Gross was sentenced to 15 years in prison for crimes against the state. He maintains he was trying to help members of Cuba’s tiny Jewish community get online.

His imprisonment has put a damper on any likelihood of improved ties between Cuba and the United States, which do not have formal diplomatic relations and are divided by five decades of mutual suspicion and distrust.

Gross’ case was raised earlier this week when Roberta S. Jacobson, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“We ... continue to seek the unconditional release of American citizen Alan Gross, a dedicated development worker who has been unjustly imprisoned in Cuba for nearly two years,” Jacobson told the committee.

Family members have expressed concern for Gross’ health and urged his release on humanitarian grounds, but Alarcon’s words suggest that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Talk of possibly swapping Gross for one or more of the “Cuban Five” agents imprisoned in the United States has similarly gone nowhere. One of the men, Rene Gonzalez, was paroled last month but ordered to remain in the U.S. while he serves three years of probation.

On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department said officials at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana continue to have regular consular access to Gross and visited him most recently on Nov. 3.

His wife, Judy Gross, has urged Americans to contact members of Congress and write letters to newspapers pressing for her husband’s return.

For the first time in fifty years, Cubans will be able to freely buy and sell their homes. As news of this long-awaited and the biggest yet of Raul Castro’s slow-moving but continuing, irreversible economic reform campaign in Cuba reverberated on and off the island, policymakers in Washington are increasingly – embarrassingly – out of step with what’s actually happening on the island today. It's like the U.S. embargo has become a wax feature at Madame Tussaud's: questionably life-like and stuck forever in one moment in time.

As Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson appeared before a Senate committee this week that could make or break her nomination to become Assistant Secretary, the able career diplomat was forced further and further into the Cuban policy box the Obama administration has needlessly painted itself.

Grilled by Senator Marco ["The Exile"] Rubio (R-FL) on the administration’s policies toward the island, Jacobson repeated that the president's new, more open travel and remittance policies for Cuban Americans and other “certain, very clearly defined” travelers is intended to help foster democracy in Cuba. And, as have other administration officials in the two years since the limited U.S. policy reforms began, she failed to forcefully and unapologetically insist that not only is exposure to Americans better for the Cuban people than is isolation, but that it’s good for the American people too.

Jacobson should have been armed with a sure-footed answer like this:

“Senator, the administration believes increased interaction with Americans is inherently a positive thing that will contribute to a growing sense of openness on the island that the Cuban people already are building for themselves. But just as strongly, we believe that, unlike the Cuban government for many years now, our nation has nothing to fear in letting our citizens travel abroad. We’re confident that these travelers not only bring and share our democratic values with them on their trips, but that they benefit from their studies, exchanges and worship, even and especially if they disagree with practices to which they are exposed while in Cuba.”

But because the administration has never boldly sold its Cuba policies, and has instead chosen to weakly defend them on an as-needed basis, the box into which officials like Jacobson must squeeze gets ever smaller. And it emboldens an unapologetic, almost authoritarian line of questioning from Rubio, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

“But if our policy ultimately is to foster democracy, wouldn’t we, shouldn’t these groups be evaluated on the basis of what they would do to foster democracy? If a ballet wants to go perform in Cuba, if a sports team wants to go play – shouldn’t we analyze that at least to try to figure out what this would do to try to foster democracy?

Who are you going to get to see, where are you going to get to express yourself, what are you going to do when you are there that actually fosters our foreign policy towards Cuba . . . ”

Surely few Americans would feel comfortable with such a Big Brother-style inquiry into their personal and professional travels. Conducting the government’s foreign policy is usually something best left to its diplomats, not private citizens. It’s a painful irony that Jacobson says we hope these exchanges can take place without “the intervention of the Cuban government,” precisely as the long arm of our own government is, well, intervening in these exchanges.

The smarter approach would be for the administration to finally acknowledge and encourage the biggest structural economic, social and yes, even political changes underway in Cuba in decades, and to reframe our policy objectives and methods according to the clearly changing context on the island. Instead, we continue to be guided – and boxed in – by what we thought was inevitable in Cuba - total regime change - twenty years ago in the aftermath of the Cold War. The regime is changing, no doubt, as Raul Castro fights a corrupt and resistant bureaucracy, dialogues with the Catholic Church on human rights and announces term limits for all high level government posts. But it’s not the sort of change we can create or for which we can take any credit in fostering.

As Cuba’s government forges ahead with its own necessary reforms, including, as Raul Castro himself has indicated, coming reforms to Cubans’ rights to travel abroad, America’s willful ignorance looks ever more dated and foolish.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI is planning to visit Cuba and Mexico in the spring of 2012, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said on Thursday, adding that Cuba "wanted to see the pope very much."

"The nuncios of Mexico and Cuba have been charged in recent days with informing the highest religious and political leaders in the two countries that the pope is examining a concrete project to visit," he said in a statement.

Cuba "is a country that wanted to see the pope very much. It has never forgotten John Paul II's historic visit" in 1998, he said.

"The pope's visit will be a great encouragement, particularly on the 400-year anniversary of the Virgin of Charity," the patron saint of Cuba.

"The Church and the whole population are living through an important moment in their history" he added.

Lombardi said the 84-year-old pope had been advised not to travel to parts of Mexico because of the altitude but said he would probably visit the capital.

The pope visited Brazil in May 2007 for a conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops.

Saturday, November 05, 2011

!LOL! “Representative” Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has suddenly “found religion” and is now an environmentalist! She should start closer to home. Perhaps nowhere on the planet–except perhaps the industrial reaches of northern New Jersey, northern Delaware and Louisiana (and perhaps around Moa Bay, too!)–has Mother Nature been more defiled as it has in South Florida. Each year (at least until the recent real estate debacle) the Everglades are filled-in, drained-out and pushed back another few miles in order to build more condos, strip-malls and office parks. If the mortgages for these places are now symbolically “under water,” within a hundred years these properties will literally be “under water,” as the Florida penninsula becomes, instead, the Florida archipelago, and will look something like Greece (which is also, thanks to the bad investments of multi-national banks, now “under water!”)

THE REPUBLICAN presidential candidates are coming down with a bad case of flat-tax fever--and working people better hope it doesn't spread, because we'd feel the pain.

If you're a SocialistWorker.org reader, you're probably reaching for your wallet about now--and you're right. The flat tax is nothing more than a gimmick to repackage the drive to cut taxes for the rich.

In reality, most of the flat-tax proposals would lead to a significant tax increase for a majority of people in the U.S. All would blow a bigger hole in the federal budget, providing the politicians--Democrats as well as Republicans--with more excuses to slash away at social programs that benefit working people and the poor.

They value education and hard work. They are peace-loving. They are friendly. They pose no threat to the United States. They love Americans. A country with that kind of profile should be among our closest friends, if not a valuable ally. Given that description, you must think that we are talking about Canada. But, in fact, that's the nature of the Cuban people. Despite all those truths about Cuba, we deny U.S. citizens the right to travel there or do business there. Instead of friendship and diplomatic ties, the U.S. government considers them to be enemies. It is simply crazy.

We've been to Cuba many times over the last 20 years. Every time, we return with the same thought.. If it were not for the political BS in this country, the Cuban trade embargo would have ended long ago. American businesses would have settled their disputes that arose from the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and many Cuban-Americans who settled here after the revolt would have found a way to resolve their own antagonism and hostility toward the government leaders in Cuba.

Instead, American leaders, both in Washington and Miami, continue to insist that the only way to bring change in Cuba is to crack down even harder, make it more impossible to travel or do business there. President Barack Obama, who entered office in 2008 with the possibility of reducing U.S.-Cuba tensions, just last week once again signed the official documents keeping the embargo in place; while President Clinton ceded the right to Congress to end the embargo, President Obama could have at least forced a debate about the embargo. Or there's Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), who wants to pass a law reversing all the new travel regulations which have allowed more Americans to visit Cuba through licenses granted to academic, humanitarian and educational organizations.

The officials have it wrong. First of all, the only people getting hurt are the Cuban people. Much of the deprivations they face come from the U.S. trade embargo which limits their access to the closest and most prosperous market to them. Secondly, the mere fact of people-to-people contact is the quickest way to enlighten Cubans about the outside world, especially their big neighbor to the north.

There is a window open right now which has made it easier for Americans to take sponsored trips to Cuba. We have given you a guide to Havana that is current and will make any visit there more enjoyable, especially for all cigar lovers. But the real reason to go is to get to know the Cuban people. It's time the U. S. government come down on the people's side and dropped the ridiculous and outdated policies that keep any progress from being made.

Marvin R. ShankenEditor and Publisher

Gordon MottExecutive Editor

------

JG: The December 2011 printed issue of Cigar Aficionado is one of exceptional beauty and of excellent journalism and outstanding photography. The cover, with its different hues of green, deserves a special award. It displays the mezzanine bar at Havana's Hotel Saratoga, an excellent photo by Angus McRitchie. This current issue of the magazine is truly a work of art.

But it does not stop there. The issue has an incredible and up-to-date “Insiders Guide” to the Capital City of Cuba, Havana, with superb coverage of its best hotels, restaurants, nightlife, cigar factories and cigar shops. A suggested tour of La Habana Vieja, with a detailed street map, is added icing on the cake.

And of course there are all those beautiful and artistic reproductions of cigar bands, produced both inside and outside the Caribbean island.

Run to your nearest magazine shop and get your copy. It will be one that you will go back to many times and you will treasure it forever for its infinite beauty.

But the most important thing that you should do is write to your Congressman and U.S. Senator and request that the Cuba embargo be lifted. Barack Obama has been a big disappointment on the issue, with his timid and weak measures. He continues to pander daily to the Miami money crowd. It will take a true statesman in the future to recognize the futility of the economic and financial blockade against Cuba.

WASHINGTON - Diplomacy can often be messy, but at opening night of Hemingway's Bar in Northwest D.C., it was nothing but good will and mojitos.

And cigars. Lots and lots of cigars.

The invite-only watering hole inside the Cuban Interests Section -- the equivalent of an embassy -- boasts a small yet impressive collection of historic photographs. Most of them involve Ernest Hemingway fishing, smiling and slapping Fidel Castro on the back. The two shared an affinity for marlins, a sporty fish with an elongated body and spear-like snout.

During his dedication speech, Mission Chief (ambassador) Jorge Bolanos told a story about Hemingway spending a day on the high seas with Castro and his then right-hand man, Che Guevara. The trio was so engrossed in their expedition that Castro missed a number of important meetings. When he finally surfaced, the communist dictator apologized for being late and joked that at least his fish was bigger than Hemingway's.

This was the birth of the Ernest Hemingway International Billfish Tournament, an annual sporting event that fancies itself a cultural bridge between the U.S. and Cuba.

The creation of Hemingway's Bar is billed in much the same way. Opening statements revolved around the writer's deep love of the island country -- he made Finca Vigia his home for some 20 years -- and of nurturing a cultural relationship between the historically hostile countries. No one mentioned embargoes or detainees.

"Hemingway clearly started his life as a full-blown American, but he really spent the last third of his life in Cuba and became more and more Cuban," said Jenny Phillips from the Finca Vigia Foundation. "It's that dual identity that allowed this project ... to become a cultural bridge. This is not a political bridge."

Bolanos called the bar a pet project, something he hopes will show people how much the two countries have in common -- including an iconic writer.

"Hemingway called Cuba his adopted nation, and donated the medal of the Nobel prize to the patron saint of Cuba," Bolanos said. "He had a very close relationship" with the country.

WITH the maxim of promoting Cuba’s economic relations with the rest of the world, the 29th Havana Trade Fair opened November 1 with the participation of 1,500 companies and 3,000 business executives from 60 countries, in its traditional Expocuba venue.

As Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz, Cuban Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment noted during the Fair’s inauguration, "The broad presence of foreign business executives is a reflection of their confidence in our country and the existing potential for undertaking mutually advantageous joint ventures."

Malmierca announced that the Cuban economy grew by 1.9% in the first half of 2011 and its end of year growth is estimated to reach 2.9%.

Cuba’s principal trading partners (Spain, Venezuela, China and Canada) had a large representation in this edition. Also significant was the participation of Latin America nations, 16 in total, among which various member countries of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) stood out.

A session was organized for participants in this regional bloc on the Single Regional Payment Compensation System (SUCRE), in addition to business meetings and a negotiating round.

The six-day Trade Fair served as a framework for business agreements, the signing of contracts and talks with the island’s principal partners directed at strengthening trade links and demonstrating Cuba’s commercial opportunities.

The opening ceremony of Cuba’s largest trade fair was attended by Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz, vice president of the Council of Ministers; René Mesa Villafaña, minister of construction; Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz; Abraham Maciques Maciques, president of the Fair’s organizing committee; and Estrella Madrigal Valdés, president of the Chamber of Commerce.

SPAIN: MOST REPRESENTED COUNTRY

Spanish Day took place during the event’s first session. This year, this country increased its exhibition area to 2,900 square meters and dedicated its two pavilions to energy, chemistry, sport and tourism.

Grouped together by Spain’s Institute of Foreign Trade, 120 companies from that country had a presence at the Fair, exhibiting a varied range of products among which construction materials, foodstuffs, and consumer goods and services were prominent.

Antonio Luis Carricarte, Cuban deputy minister of foreign trade, noted the presence of 40 new Spanish companies, "which illustrates Spanish business executives’ confidence in and expectations of the Cuban market."

As Manuel Cacho, Spanish ambassador to Cuba, stated, his country’s strong participation in the event is a demonstration of the constant interest of Spanish enterprises in the development of the Cuban economy.

The Fair, Cacho affirmed, is an occasion for Spanish companies to seek and create new opportunities for cooperating with Cuban companies.

In 2010, trade between Spain and Cuba reached 719 million euros and the island was Spain’s fifth client in Latin America. Spain continues to be Cuba’s first client within the European Union.

Beyond the framework, of FIHAV, more than 200 branches of Spanish companies have a presence in Cuba and more than 50 joint ventures are operating on the island.

CUBA PROMOTING HEALTH SERVICES

Around 350 Cuban enterprises from all industries took part in FIHAV 2011 with an increased presence, quality and competitiveness. The Cuban exhibition area covered 5,000 square meters, with a notable input from the services sector: health, technology and medical equipment, as well as informatics and communications.

The health sector had the strongest promotion with biotechnological products, generic medicaments, monoclonal antibodies and the Labiofam range.

As part of its policy of increasing exports, the island is designing a strategy for the export of innovative products for treating health problems and promoting agreements to gradually replace imports of spare parts.

MEXICO CITY — Cuba announced a new property law Thursday that promises to allow citizens and permanent residents to buy and sell real estate — the most significant market-oriented change yet approved by the government of Raúl Castro, and one that will probably reshape Cuba’s cities and conceptions of class.

The new rules go into effect on Nov. 10, according to Cuba’s Granma newspaper, and while some of the fine print is still being written, the law published on Thursday amounts to a major break from decades of socialist housing. For the first time since the early days of the revolution, buyers and sellers will be allowed to set home prices and move when they want. Transactions of various kinds, including sales, trades and gifts to relatives by Cubans who are emigrating, will no longer be subject to government approval, the new law says.

Do not allow yourself to be scammed by the Miami Gusanos. Read "The Gateta Oficial de la Republica de Cuba." (Click on the link for the oficial PDF file.

It is very interesting and INFORMATIVE to read the original text of the Decree/Law 288, in the original Spanish. There are some idiots who live in the United States that are now yelling: "Cuba is going capitalist." What a bunch of FOOLS! In capitalist U.S.A., with its system based on exploitation and greed, you can purchase 50, or 100 personal "homes." None of that is happening in Cuba with Decree Law 288. You can have, at the most, two personal properties. Cuba is not trying to import greedy capitalism from the United States. It is trying to perfect what the majority of the Cuban people have chosen as a better system: NATIVE CUBAN SOCIALISM.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

November 2, 2011.- The Cuban ambassador to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Maria de los Angeles Florez, announced Wednesday the reelection of Cuba as member of the Executive Board of the international entity.

The decision, made during the 36th UNESCO General Conference underway in Paris, is an international acknowledgment to the island, the diplomat told PL.

She added that the reelection is rewarding and at the same time commits the island to keep on working, especially at a moment in which the U.S. government decided to withhold his payments to UNESCO following the acceptance of Palestine as a full member of the organization.

In relation to Washington’s move, Fidel Castro wrote in his most recent reflections published today by the national and international media, that the White House’s decision did not take anyone by surprise. He said the action shows the U.S. government’s total lack of ethical values.

UNESCO’s Executive Board, made up of 58 nations, is elected every four years. Its main functions include the execution of the program adopted by the General Conference, whose current sessions began October 25 and will wrap up November 10.

In addition to Cuba, the other countries elected from Latin America and the Caribbean were Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico.(Cubaminrex/ACN)

Lausanne, Switzerland – Cuba Remains on top of the world, the Netherlands enter International Baseball’s Top 5.

With the completion of the 2011 summer tournament schedule, the IBAF World Rankings have been amended to reflect the current positioning of nations within the IBAF baseball world.

Cuba remains at the top of the rankings, along with the United States, Korea and Japan demonstrating the top 4 nations are indeed still playing great baseball. The Netherlands, after the momentous 2011 IBAF Baseball World Cup victory moved into the top 5, while Canada, Chinese Taipei , Venezuela, Puerto Rico round out the top 10.

The rise of the Netherlands into the top 5 represents a milestone for European baseball developemnt with a total of 7 teams in the top 25.

The gains by the European sector reflect a growing balance at the elite international level, and demonstrate the strides the international game is taking in terms of development. The The Americas Region (COPABE) has 10 representatives in the top 25, followed by 8 in Europe (CEB), 6 in the Asian region (BFA) and 1 in Oceania.

The rankings are compiled using all IBAF tournaments, including Senior and non senior event held over the preceding 4 year period, and assigns points based on these results. Other criteria include

* Major World Championships with teams from five continents eligible (4x points) * IBAF Baseball World Cup * World Baseball Classic * Olympic Games (to be removed from ranking system in 2012) * Minor World Championships with teams from three or more continents (1x points) * Intercontinental Cup * IBAF “AAA” (18U) World Junior Championships * IBAF “AA” (16U) World Youth Championships * FISU World University Championships * World Qualifying Tournaments with three or more continents (1x points) Final Olympic Qualifying Tournament * Continental Qualifying Tournaments/Championships Scoring is as follows: * A continental event with three or more teams in the previous year-end rankings’ top 10 – 1X points * A continental event with two teams in the previous year-end rankings’ top 10 - .75X points * A continental event with one team in the previous year-end rankings’ top 10 - .50X points * A continental event with no teams in the previous year-end rankings’ top 10 - .25X points * Note: if a member federation “wins” a tournament due to forfeit or byes, then it is automatically awarded points based on a .25X multiplier

The rankings display the 2011 place, as compared to the 2010 position.

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